This work-in-progress research paper explores the intersection of cross-functional teamwork and design thinking within the course design process through collaborative autoethnography. Collaborative autoethnography uses individual and dialogic reflections to provide a detailed and nuanced exploration of experiences within a culture (e.g., a course design team) and generate insights that might inform broader community of individuals who experience related cultures. In this study, we investigate how individual educators attempt to shape and are shaped by a unique team course design process in electrical and computer engineering. The participant-researchers in this study are three electrical and computer engineering faculty members and one engineering education researcher who have participated in a six-semester-long course redesign effort. The effort has emphasized building and utilizing a new cross-functional team approach, imbued with design thinking strategies, to support improved professional formation and student-centeredness within an embedded systems course for electrical and computer engineering students. In this study, data collection and analysis were integrated and iterative. This process engaged cycles of setting writing prompts, individual writing, group discussion and reflection, and setting new writing prompts. This process was repeated as participant-researchers and the team as a whole refined their insights, explored emergent topics, and connected their observations to external research and scholarship. The autoethnographic process is ongoing, but five themes have emerged that describe key features of the team course design process and experience: (1) uncertainty, (2) navigating the team, (3) navigating the self, (4) navigating the system, and (5) process. The paper features a collection of participant-researcher reflections related to these emergent themes.
Nicholas D. Fila is an assistant research professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University. He earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Purdue University. His current research explores engineering students' experiences with innovation, empathy across engineering education and engineering design settings, design thinking in the course design process, and novel uses of qualitative research methods in engineering education.
Diane Rover is a University Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University. She has held various faculty and administrative appointments at ISU and Michigan State University since 1991. She received the B.S. in computer science in 1984, and the M.S. and Ph.D. in computer engineering in 1986 and 1989 (ISU). Her teaching and research has focused on embedded computer systems, reconfigurable hardware, parallel and distributed systems, visualization, performance monitoring and evaluation, and engineering education. She has held officer positions in the ASEE ECE Division, served as an associate editor for the ASEE Journal of Engineering Education, and served on the IEEE Committee on Engineering Accreditation Activities, the IEEE Education Society Board of Governors, the ABET EAC (2009-2014), and EAC Executive Committee (2015-2018). Dr. Rover is a Fellow of the IEEE and of ASEE.
Mani Mina is with the department of Industrial Design and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University. He has been working on better understanding of students' learning and aspects of technological and engineering philosophy and literacy. In particular how such literacy and competency are reflected in curricular and student activities. His interests also include Design and Engineering, the human side of engineering, new ways of teaching engineering in particular Electromagnetism and other classes that are mathematically driven. His research and activities also include on avenues to connect Product Design and Engineering Education in a synergetic way.
Phillip H. Jones received his B.S. degree in 1999 and M.S. degree in 2002 in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He received his Ph.D. degree in 2008 in computer engineering from Washington University in St. Louis. Currently, he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University, Ames, where he has been since 2008. His research interests are in adaptive computing systems, reconfigurable hardware, embedded systems, and hardware architectures for application specific acceleration. Jones received Intel Corporation sponsored Graduate Engineering Minority (GEM) Fellowships from 1999-2000 and from 2003-2004. He received the best paper award from the IEEE International Conference on VLSI Design in 2007.
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